Miloš Milojević


Miloš S. Milojević was a Serbian lawyer, writer, and politician. His work has been described as "at a ridge between history and literature", mostly for his travel-recording genre.

Biography

Miloš S. Milojević, son of a parish priest, was born at Crna Bara in Mačva, Serbia, on 16 October 1840. He graduated with a law degree from Belgrade's Grandes écoles in 1862; studied philosophy, philology and history at the University of Moscow, from 1862 to 1865. His professor was Osip Bodyansky. He didn't wait to graduate and in 1866 Milojević returned to Serbia to work for the government judicial system, and later taught at high schools in Valjevo, Belgrade and Leskovac.
He died in Belgrade on 24 June 1897. He was buried in Novo Groblje.

Historiography

In 1887 his approach to historiography was challenged and debated by Ilarion Ruvarac and Ljubomir Kovačević and eventually proved “erroneous” through “critical methods”, though not all of his scholarship was marred by their victory. His reputation as a scholar as well as his studies has been somewhat vindicated in modern times, in light of new and/or previously disregarded evidence. He traveled to the Kosovo and Metohija region in 1871-1877 and left three volumes of data and maps which testify that Serbs were the majority and Albanians the minority population. His demographic-statistical structure matched an independent census taken by the Austrian authorities at about the same time. Because of his ideas about Greater Serbia and Serbisation, he is also known as “Mad Miloš” in Bulgaria. The map included not only today Bulgaria, but also present-day Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Northern Greece.

Works